King George... Here in New York, I have always thought the Upper West Side looks similar to some of the older parts of Frankfort. Sometimes I walk down Broadway and imagine what it would be like if trucks were parked along the side streets and people herded out of their apartments into the trucks in the middle of the night. My guess is it would be done by troops, while the regular NYC Police stood by. We would be taken to Riverside park where the train comes out of the tunnel and herded into train cars. Or maybe they would put us on special express Number 1 trains to 242 street. Then we could be herded into Van Cortland Park to wait for transit to the camps in Greene County. When the facilities in Greene County filled up, they could truck us out Route 17 to the Otselic Valley, the nearest really isolated area to New York City. I lived in Heidelberg for roughly 9 years in the 1960's and 70's. I looked German, spoke German, and usually passed for Dutch or Danish. I worked at the Opera Company, and spent a lot of time around people who had worked there twenty or thirty years. They talked about the war and years preceding it a lot, the way my parents talked about the depression at the dinner table when I was a child. Just so, whenever we were all sitting around during a break or after a rehearsal, at dinner, or out for drinks, the subject would tend towards those confusing years when everything had been turned upside down. Unnoticed, I sat in the background listening to the stories. No one took the ideas of the Third Reich seriously at first. By the time they began to realize what was going on they were frightened for their lives. If the Government could take the assistant conductor in the middle of the night, the government could take any one of them away.. Whenever a Government gives itself the prerogative to set aside basic human rights at will, we are on a path that changes the relationship between the government and the people. What can be justified in one instance can be justified in all instances. If you can justify rounding up one group of people and placing them in concentration camps without an indictment, a list of specific charges, or an attorney, you can justify rounding up another unpopular group of individuals. If a government can set aside rules against torture for one person then it can basically select anyone out of the population for the same treatment on any “urgent” basis whatsoever. This is what my German friends realized too late, that to the Government, individuals are all the same, and once the rules re set aside for one individual, they have basically set aside the rules for us all.

Snow Day...I just looked across the street from my window to check the snow and saw a neighbor returning home after a Sunday afternoon out. It’s about 4 pm and the man is dressed in a mid-length woolen coat with a woolen hat and is pulling a sled. I vaguely recognize him as a fairly stodgy middle aged man. He is covered with snow and looks happy. I start to wonder- I’ve never seen him with a female companion or children, so was he out sledding alone? The sled is one of the “American Flyer” type sleds with the little metal runners and a wooden slat at the top for steering. It’s been years since I’ve been sledding. The last time was in the Alps near Garmisch with my son. The hill was steep and snowy and we went over a teeth rattling bump at the end of the ride. I think about Riverside park and where a solitary adult could go to enjoy a quick sled run. Riverside park is more like Delaware Park in Buffalo than the Alps. In Riverside park there are potential sled runs between the upper walkways down to the main promenade just above the Soccer fields. This being New York, an adult could probably go sledding in Riverside park without raising any eyebrows. In Buffalo no one sledded after their 20th birthday, unless they were there with their kids. I stopped sledding when I became a “big girl”and took up Ice Skating.

Forty years...one of my longest friendships slipped away unnoticed at the end of 2005- Tony Depauw, the week day manager of Gryphon Books , and lately, Westsider Books, passed away in his apartment at the end of November or early December. We're not sure exactly because he lay undiscovered for several weeks. Tony was the bald guy with a black fringe of hair and a mustache who was a fixture at the front desk as you came into the book store. He was there everyday Monday through Friday and spent his days pointing customers in the right direction for research, chatting with people about their book needs and interests, ringing up sales and packing up mail order purchases. If you ever visited the Gryphon, (now Westsider Books), the used books store on Broadway next to Staples at 81st street, if it was during the week you have met Tony and had a conversation. I had many conversations with Tony, cause he lived in my household for almost twenty years. He took a European out from the Army in Heidelberg about 1965, and got a job in the map shop at headquarters US Army Europe, USAREUR, on Roemer Strasse. His job was located in the Adjutant General's office where Richard, my first husband worked on contingency plans. Richard invited Tony over when my son was an infant in1967, when we were still living over the "Snookeloch" ( the Student Prince bar of "drink drink drink" fame) on Haspelgasse in Heidelberg. We were already fast friends when Neal Armstrong walked on the moon, and watched it together on a grainy little German TV. I was performing in German Opera and Special Services Army productions and got Tony involved in back stage work at the US Road Side Theater shows. After our move into a bigger apartment he came home with Richard every day, ate dinner with us and basically moved in. We played Scrabble or MilleBorne almost every night for five years. When Richard rented a garden from the City out on the Rhineplain Tony became one of my loyal garden slaves, coming out to the garden on his bike every day after work to help pull the witches grass, plant, and pick strawberries and later, cherries. We all had bicycles, and in 1970 we took off on a train for France with our bikes for a trip through Normandy. Tony was our map man, and he brought big old army ordnance maps for the trip. They showed altitudes, so he made sure we avoided all the hills, except at Avranches, which is basically located on the top of a hill. Tony also know all the history of the battles, so we got a blow by blow description of what happened at every rest stop location. Staying at pensions or small hotels we found along the way, we ate picnic lunches with food from the local Charcutierie. At night we had the best food of our lives. The next year, in 1971, we got a summer place in Altneudorf in the Odenwald with a friend who was a TV News producer for Southern Germany TV. Tony came in for a share and we went up every weekend. We took hikes, had big BBQs every Sunday, and planted a big garden with seeds I ordered from Stoke's through the APO. I had squash if every description and, of course, American corn. Tony worked on his compost heap. It was the most scientific compost heap ever built, and no one was permitted to touch it. Finally, Tony got a government job in Maryland at the Social Securities Administration, so we said good bye at the Frankfort Airport in 1975. A year later I came back and got my place in New York . Tony was the first person I visited, and he started coming up every other weekend to go to theater in New York. He moved up here permanently in 1978, taking up residence in our maid's room. After looking for a government job in the City, he followed his dream and got a job as Technical Director at Shelter West Theater on VanDam street. I was doing a lot of theater then, Barry and I were together, and Tristan got into Bronx Science. When he wasn't working, Tony took a welding course (which he talked about constantly) and got really interested in "how to do it" books. He also collected odd things from the street for the theater, and by 1988 we started looking for a new apartment for him. It was just around that time that he left Shelter West during a financial crisis, and got the job at Gryphon Books, where he stayed until this past November

Forty years...one of my longest friendships slipped away unnoticed at the end of 2005- Tony Depauw, the week day manager of Gryphon Books , and lately, Westsider Books, passed away in his apartment at the end of November or early December. We're not sure exactly because he lay undiscovered for several weeks. Tony was the bald guy with a black fringe of hair and a mustache who was a fixture at the front desk as you came into the book store. He was there everyday Monday through Friday and spent his days pointing customers in the right direction for research, chatting with people about their book needs and interests, ringing up sales and packing up mail order purchases. If you ever visited the Gryphon, (now Westsider Books), the used books store on Broadway next to Staples at 81st street, if it was during the week you have met Tony and had a conversation. I had many conversations with Tony, cause he lived in my household for almost twenty years. He took a European out from the Army in Heidelberg about 1965, and got a job in the map shop at headquarters US Army Europe, USAREUR, on Roemer Strasse. His job was located in the Adjutant General's office where Richard, my first husband worked on contingency plans. Richard invited Tony over when my son was an infant in1967, when we were still living over the "Snookeloch" ( the Student Prince bar of "drink drink drink" fame) on Haspelgasse in Heidelberg. We were already fast friends when Neal Armstrong walked on the moon, and watched it together on a grainy little German TV. I was performing in German Opera and Special Services Army productions and got Tony involved in back stage work at the US Road Side Theater shows. After our move into a bigger apartment he came home with Richard every day, ate dinner with us and basically moved in. We played Scrabble or MilleBorne almost every night for five years. When Richard rented a garden from the City out on the Rhineplain Tony became one of my loyal garden slaves, coming out to the garden on his bike every day after work to help pull the witches grass, plant, and pick strawberries and later, cherries. We all had bicycles, and in 1970 we took off on a train for France with our bikes for a trip through Normandy. Tony was our map man, and he brought big old army ordnance maps for the trip. They showed altitudes, so he made sure we avoided all the hills, except at Avranches, which is basically located on the top of a hill. Tony also know all the history of the battles, so we got a blow by blow description of what happened at every rest stop location. Staying at pensions or small hotels we found along the way, we ate picnic lunches with food from the local Charcutierie. At night we had the best food of our lives. The next year, in 1971, we got a summer place in Altneudorf in the Odenwald with a friend who was a TV News producer for Southern Germany TV. Tony came in for a share and we went up every weekend. We took hikes, had big BBQs every Sunday, and planted a big garden with seeds I ordered from Stoke's through the APO. I had squash if every description and, of course, American corn. Tony worked on his compost heap. It was the most scientific compost heap ever built, and no one was permitted to touch it. Finally, Tony got a government job in Maryland at the Social Securities Administration, so we said good bye at the Frankfort Airport in 1975. A year later I came back and got my place in New York . Tony was the first person I visited, and he started coming up every other weekend to go to theater in New York. He moved up here permanently in 1978, taking up residence in our maid's room. After looking for a government job in the City, he followed his dream and got a job as Technical Director at Shelter West Theater on VanDam street. I was doing a lot of theater then, Barry and I were together, and Tristan got into Bronx Science. When he wasn't working, Tony took a welding course (which he talked about constantly) and got really interested in "how to do it" books. He also collected odd things from the street for the theater, and by 1988 we started looking for a new apartment for him. It was just around that time that he left Shelter West during a financial crisis, and got the job at Gryphon Books, where he stayed until this past November